What platform? Meego is far from production ready as a tablet platform, a Linux/Plasma solution is even further off. Even a Android based solution require quite a lot of RND to get out the door as a competitive tablet platform, as is why the tide of Android tablet has not hit the market yet.

Going with QNX, they are paying for everything by themselves.

Since QNX are more than self sustained and generates income, a large part of the RND gets paid by QNX customers. And a good part of any improvements and continued development of QNX will also be beneficially in QNXs current market segments, both for existing and potentially new customers.

And it's not like they are starting from scratch, QNX has already been in various types of equipment with touch based GUIs. In the end their RND expenses should not become too bad, compared to the RND requirements of bringing any of the Linux based solutions to a shipping standard. Adding factors like time to market and the potential for increased income for their QNX product, the decision makes quite a lot of sense.